Re: [-empyre-] Opening remarks on new media history

[Chris Chesher <c.chesher@unsw.edu.au>]

Hi Alan

These questions are somewhat peripheral to the main point of my 
previous post, however it's fair enough to call me up on some points of 
definition. I'll give it a go...

On Monday, January 5, 2004, at 12:50  PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:

> What is a 'communicational event'

At its broadest level, a communicational event is any difference that 
makes a difference. However, for a communicational event (enunciation, 
if you like) to carry any force, it must summon forth things beyond its 
own breath. If it makes a claim to coercive power, it must speak to 
some promise of violence (including legal fictions, etc). If it's a 
work of fine art, it must speak to a community of gallery owners, 
critics, publics etc.


> - and what is meant by 'conventional standards'?

In many cases, the force of an enunciation acts along well established 
channels. Institutions are substantially characterised by their 
conventional modes of enunciation (this is not a 'bad' thing, it's just 
the way they work). Judges call to precedents when they pass sentence 
on a criminal. However, some enunciations change what and how they 
summon others. These changes are interesting as new media events.


> Many painters certainly deviate from conventional standards -
> from Richter, say on -

There's no reason not to consider a painting as a new media event, if 
you want to make that argument. The point would be not to compare the 
painting with other paintings according to how they adhere (or not) to 
the conventions of what makes a good painting, but to ask how the work 
operates as an event that changes the mode of communication itself.


> In other words, does stepping into a semiotic/communications paradigm
> change anything except move the same problems into another domain?

Yes (I hope!)

In my previous post, my main goal was to suggest a way of defining new 
media that does not reduce the term to a historical category, nor to 
technological determinism. By avoiding these traps (which lead to 
obsolescence or reductionism), we can keep the field of new media 
electric, rather than a cud-chewing pasture. If the cost of this 
precision is a switch in discourse, then I  would say that it is worth 
that effort!



Chris


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